A US Defense Department program to train and equip personnel around the world for the fight against terrorism has failed in more than half of its cases. According to the Government Accountability Office, in 2016 and 2017 the Global Train and Equip project had failed to enhance the capabilities of designated forces in 13 out of 21 projects.

Sputnik has discussed the Pentagon’s program and the fight against terrorism with Larry Johnson retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official.

Sputnik: Why did this program fail in more than half of its cases, which is a lot, did it manage to achieve anything?

Larry Johnson: I have not read the report, so I don’t know what criteria they were using to judge it by. I think all we can do is look at the objective fact which is that the number of terrorist incidents over the last 15 years have increased not diminished. This all rests on the premise that the failure prior to 2001 was that the criticism was leveled that the United States was fighting terrorism as a police action and the critics insisted that you need to fight it as a military operation.

Well, we’ve now had since 2001 ample evidence of military involvement in combating terrorism and you can see that instead of diminishing it, eliminating it, it has actually in some aspects made it worse. So I think this notion of just throwing money into the Pentagon and then having special forces and special operations forces go about training foreign training forces doesn’t really address what may be the root of the terrorist activity.